A man goes to confession, sits down and tells the priest, "Forgive me
Father, for I have sinned."
"What was your sin, my son?" the priest asked.

"Obscene language," the man replied.

"That's a terrible sin," the priest replied. "Do you swear often?"
"No," answered the man, "but do you know the local golf course?"

"Indeed I do," said the priest

"I play there often. When I was on the tee at the fourth hole, the long
par three, I hit one of the best drives of my life. It must have gone 220
yards on the fly, straight down the middle, took one bounce, and then hit
a sprinkler head and bounced off into the bush."

"I'm not surprised that you swore," said the priest, "If that had happened
to me..."

"No, I didn't swear then. The shot I had hit was a great one and the
bounce was just the luck of the game. When I checked the position of my
ball, I realized that I still had a chance of making par. The ball was on
a hardpan lie, and there was a small gap through the trees for me to have
a shot at the green. I really should have taken the safe option and just
played out sideways to the fairway, but I had hit such a great drive that
my confidence was high."

The man continued, "I was still about 200 yards from the green, so I took
a five wood from the bag, positioned the ball back in my stance to keep it
low and hopefully get under the trees, told myself to forget about all the
hazards and just imagine the ball on the green, and played the shot. Even
using the wood, I nipped the ball perfectly off the hard lie, the ball
kept low as I planned, and flew straight as a die toward the green, took
one bounce onto the green, hit the flagstick and bounced off sideways into
that deep pot bunker to the right of the green."

"My son, my son," said the priest; "I'm ready to forgive you already. That
would have made a saint swear."

"No father," said the man, "I didn't swear then. I realized that I had
just played two perfect shots and only bad luck had stopped me from
getting the result I deserved. When I saw my ball, I thought that all my
hopes of making par had disappeared. It was lying right against the face
of a five-foot deep bunker with very little green to work with, and I
really should have gone out sideways, but after the two good shots, I was
feeling confident. I took my sand iron out, opened the clubface fully,
aimed the ball about six feet left of the pin and played the shot. The
ball popped almost straight up in the air, landed on the green, and the
spin on the ball dragged it back to four inches from the pin."

"F#?!ing hell!" said the priest, "don't tell me you missed a four-inch
putt!"